Years ago there were various financial institutions that boat dealers could get flooring from but basically they were al bought out leaving one major player. Demands and interest rates for flooring have esculated not to mention the difficulty working with a finance company. Hunter under new ownership, I believe no longer offers dealer financing which hurts and I believe has affected their dealer network as to stocking not to mention the possible stocking requirements. As for Catalina, they offer dealer financing but I suspect the difficulties are there too not from Catalina.
Beneteau and Jeaneu are now both owned by the same person but are kept separate. Both are headquarted in France. The owner's husband now deceased use to have I believe a hardware chain in Europe and had an excellent working relationship with a major French bank who is working with the two above manufacturers and their dealers to include the U.S. dealers and probably have better terms and probably treated better.
That would appear to be true with their strong prescensens over others at the last or recent Sailboat Show in Annapolis.
With the recent recession, many middle class no longer middle class cannot afford luxury items which has hurt sales. Combined with demanded terms elsewhere, dealers in this country are trying to stay afloat. Advertising is a huge investment even back when I was a dealer and if you only knew the demands but mostly the cost to attend the Annapolis Boat Shows, it is enormous. With all this said, it does not surprise me as to lack of advertising in the magazines. I would tend to think as a business even in the Social Media, there are costs as well.
Due to health plus the fact that he is in mid to late 80's, Frank Butler did not attend the Annapolis show this year which he was sorely missed. Also their well known and highly respected representative, Ron Frisosky, passed away earlier this year and only if you knew him, Ron was respected by many to include me. However, Sharon Day and Gerry Douglas who are running Catalina too are well respected and doing a good job at that.
With two fine gentlemen, Warren Luhrs and John Peterson, gone from Hunter, that leaves Greg Emerson as Sales Manager whom I have known and respected too. Time will tell as to what will happen with Hunter. As for the past bankruptcy, Many of you do not know what occurred. Basically Hunter was in a corporation with three power boat companies which were failing this past recession except for Hunter who was propping up the other three. Well, it took its toll on Hunter and eventually the whole corporation failed. If it was Hunter standing by itself, probably no bankruptcy would have occurred.
There is no question, it is a tough time for the manufacturers and dealers and with all they are faced with, I can understand being cautious on exspenses to include advertising. Don't be fooled but they too have to pay in social media.
) years ago, just too much repetitive material for me that I can now get right here (!
